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Category: Tuition

“Xenophobia”

Here’s a new one: the Canadian Federation of Students has decided, apparently, that charging international students higher tuition fees is “xenophobic”.  No, really, they have.  This is possibly the dumbest idea in Canadian higher education since the one about OSAP “profiting” from students.   But as we’ve seen all too often in the past year or two, stupidity is no barrier to popularity where political ideas are concerned.  So: let’s get down to debunking this. The point that CFS – and

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February 6, 2017 1 Comment

More on International Fees in Canadian Universities

Due to a few unexpected issues yesterday, we had to postpone the One Thought. With no further ado, here it is: The day before yesterday we looked at what universities in different parts of the country are charging in terms of international tuition fees.  Here’s a quick graph to refresh your memory: Figure 1: International Undergraduate Tuition Fees, by Province, Canada, 2016-17 Figure 2 shows the same data but with a different Y axis.  Instead of showing the figure in dollars, let’s

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December 14, 2016 2 Comments

How International Tuition Fees Keep Canadian Universities Afloat

Everyone knows that international student numbers have been going up over the past decade or so. What you might not know is what kind of effect that’s having on university budgets. So, today, a few brief tables and charts. First, tuition fees for international undergraduate students. Nationally, these have been growing at a rate of inflation +4% over the past decade, which is substantially faster than the rise in domestic tuition (roughly, inflation +1.5%). Nationally, the average international tuition is

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December 12, 2016 4 Comments

Priorities

Next week, everyone’s favourite Federation of Students is going to have a “Day of Action” to demand “Free Education for All”.  A few months ago I explained why some student groups think it’s a good idea to be protesting right now even while governments are quite sympathetic to them  (tl:dr: it’s because Sticking It To The Man is more important that achieving practical results). Now to anyone who’s read this blog for more than once, it’s probably clear that I

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October 28, 2016 1 Comment

Peas in a Pod

A few weeks ago, there was an absolutely hysterical story on CBC about a Fraser Institute report on carbon taxes.  You can read the article for yourself, but the argument was basically this: carbon taxes are bad because they would have a disproportionate effect on people in lower income brackets. Assuming you believe the Fraser Institute actually gives a rat’s hairy behind about people in lower income brackets, this is not an entirely stupid point; multiple studies in the US

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October 3, 2016 3 Comments
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One Thought to Start Your Day is our founder and CEO Alex Usher’s popular daily blog, brimming with up-to-the-minute insights and informed opinions on today’s higher education industry.

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